SpaceX returned its workhorse Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket to space, where it deployed an Indonesian telecommunication satellite late Monday before landing its first stage on a high-tech barge off the Florida coast.

The first stage, on its second mission after being successfully launched and retrieved in May, will be reused as many as eight more times, part of the Hawthorne-based rocketbuilder’s effort to recycle components to cut costs for its clients and make spaceflight more “routine.”

The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on Monday at 10:18 PDT (1:18 a.m. Tuesday EDT.) After lobbing the Merah Putih satellite into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit about 30 minutes after launch, the first stage touched down on the whimsically named the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship in the Atlantic.

Merah Putih, a mashup of a name that’s a tribute to the red and white colors of the Indonesian flag, will improve broadband coverage in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. It’s expected to operate for 15 years or longer.

The company did not attempt the recover the fairing on this mission, citing that the “Mr. Steven” capsule-catching craft was still on the West Coast. While rough weather prevented that ship – equipped with four articulated arms and a mammoth net – from catching the nosecone after a July 25 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, Steven was used to carry the fairing home to San Pedro on July 27.

The launch is the 15th this year for Elon Musk’s busy aerospace company. Musk also operates a Tesla electric-car design center in Hawthorne, as well as the headquarters and test tunnel for his Boring Company, which aims to build transit tunnels under Southern California.

The launch continued a stellar week for the commercial rocketbuilder.

On Sunday, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, which returned to Earth on Friday from the International Space Station, was toted back home to San Pedro aboard the company’s NRC Quest ship. The capsule was hoisted from the ship into SpaceX’s facility at the Port of Los Angeles.

SpaceXs Dragon capsule returned to the Port of Los Angeles Sunday afternoon August 5, 2018. The capsule returned from the International Space Station and splashed down off the coast of Mexico August 3rd. Photo By Charles Bennett

Elon Musk’s company took center stage on Friday, too, when NASA intoduced the astronauts who will ride the first commercial capsules into orbit next year and bring crew launches back to the U.S.

SpaceX and fellow aerospace titan Boeing are shooting for a test flight of their capsules by the end of this year or early next, with the first crews flying from Cape Canaveral, Florida, by next spring or summer.

Nine astronauts were named to ride the SpaceX Dragon and Boeing Starliner capsules — five on the first crew flights and four on the second round of missions to the International Space Station.

“For the first time since 2011, we are on the brink of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who made the introductions at Johnson Space Center.

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NASA has been paying billions of dollars to SpaceX and Boeing to develop the crew capsules to pick up where the shuttles left off, while also paying billions for cargo deliveries to the space station by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman. The cargo missions started in 2012. The crew missions have been delayed repeatedly because of the technical challenges and difficulties of making spacecraft safe for humans. A recent abort test by Boeing resulted in leaking engine fuel.

Boeing’s Starliners will soar on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rockets. Dragons, meanwhile, will fly on SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 rockets. The race to get astronauts to the space station first is real; a U.S. flag that flew on the first space shuttle flight in 1981 and the last shuttle flight in 2011, awaits the winner.

SpaceX is shooting for a test flight without passengers in November and a crew flight in April. Boeing is aiming for a test flight at the end of this year or early next, and the first crew flight in the middle of next year.